Jobie Reviews Music 29: Pansarfolk (album) by Hulkoff

Pansarfolk is a 2020 power metal album by Hulkoff. The album, like other works by Hulkoff, is influenced mainly by Nordic folk, due to the singer’s Swedish origins. The album delivers powerful metal melodies with Swedish instruments sprinkled in the background, making for a sound unlike previous Hulkoff tracks.

The album starts and ends with high energy power metal tracks that Hulkoff has managed to perfect with their unique approach to creating this album. Its Nordic instruments, combined with the guitar, make for an interesting listen that I so far have not seen elsewhere.

Tracks such as “Martial” perhaps highlight this sound the best, being an example of one of the better tracks on the 1 hour and 26 minute album (technically about half an hour, since 11 tracks are English versions of the 11 Swedish tracks).

The use of Swedish instruments can especially be heard in tracks like “Lone Wolf” and “Uldin” where the track itself starts off with these instruments in the foreground rather than the background, which makes for an interesting listening experience.

All of these elements clash together perfectly in order to make the closing track, “Varangian” (or Varjagen in the Swedish version of the track) a banger ending to an already awesome album, being highly energetic and combining all of the elements that make the album great into one final explosion of Hulkoff’s unique style.

Overall, if you’re in for a unique sound that you’ve likely not heard anywhere else except for Hulkoff’s existing works, then I highly recommend listening to this album.

Overall rating:

8.8/10

LINK TO ALBUM:

https://open.spotify.com/album/6kuRYCtrhX3MP4eIwVjzVr